LITCHFIELD >> An outburst ended Tuesday with the grandmother of accused killer Tosha Strahan being escorted by a marshal out of Superior Court following a squabble over an open window used for ventilation.

The woman interrupted court proceedings to complain about being cold. A marshal asked her to switch seats, but she refused and, at one point, called the marshal a “brat.”

Strahan, 24, of 164 North Elm St. Apt. 2, in Torrington is facing an open count of murder for allegedly stabbing her boyfriend, David A. Vazquez, to death at the couple’s North Elm Street complex, in the early morning hours of Feb. 9.

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Police said an argument over a former girlfriend escalated when Vazquez told Strahan he was leaving her. An autopsy said Vazquez died of a five-inch-deep stab wound that severed his aorta.

New attorney Ira Mayo will represent Strahan going forward. He asked for a 120-day extension for a probable cause hearing Tuesday during Strahan’s first court appearance since her Feb. 19 arraignment. Mayo was tapped by Strahan’s family to replace Harwinton-based attorney Fred Boland. Boland represented Strahan at an earlier bond hearing.

Boland, who hasn’t tried a homicide case, said that didn’t factor into the sides’ agreement to part ways. He wouldn’t go into detail about Strahan’s decision but expressed confidence he could have adequately represented her.

“I feel certain she would have been in good hands,” he said.

Witnesses gave police contradictory accounts about the stabbing, with 22-year-old Rafael Montalvo admitting he was drunk when he first told investigators the couple collided when a knife-wielding Strahan rounded the corner into the kitchen.

Montalvo later told investigators said Strahan’s face was “red with anger” when she confronted Vazquez in the kitchen.

The couple had been arguing over a former girlfriend on the way back from Turner’s Cafe, a bar within walking distance of their home.

Police were called to the residence around 3:30 a.m. and found Strahan performing chest compressions on Vazquez. Strahan told police she accidentally stabbed the 25-year-old and asked officers to place her into handcuffs.

Strahan, a nurse’s assistant at an local elderly facility, was hospitalized three times since being charged.

Eighteen-year-old Mikaila Evila told police Vazquez, Strahan and two friends returned to the apartment drunk around 2:45 a.m., after spending most of the night bar-hopping.

Evila, who was sober, didn’t see whether Strahan lunged at Vazquez with the knife because her body was partially obstructing the kitchen doorway, the warrant says.

Strahan had threatened to commit suicide earlier in the night, going so far as to retrieve a knife from the kitchen and stab herself, through a jacket. Strahan suffered two cuts on her stomach, police said.

Later, while standing in the kitchen doorway, Strahan said, “If I can’t have you, no one can,” then raised her right arm and stabbed Vazquez, the warrant says. Vazquez fell forward and hit the oven.

The large, bloody kitchen knife was recovered near Vazquez’s head. Police also found a golf-ball-sized cellophane bag of crack cocaine in the apartment.

Neighbors heard commotion coming from the couple’s downstairs apartment before police arrived. Evila told her stepbrother in a text message the stabbing was an “accident.”

Strahan was arrested a day after friends and family gathered in Waterbury for Vazquez’s funeral. She is still custody on a $350,000 bond and is due back in court April 4.